Just for Laughs 2012: Bobby Slayton's back hosting the rudely honest Nasty Show

Robbie Praw (left), Just for Laughs programmer, Andy Nulman, president of Just for Laughs, comic Bobby Slayton, host of the Nasty Show, and Just for Laughs COO Bruce Hills, photographed at Moishe's steakhouse in Montreal.

Photograph by: Vincenzo D'Alto
, The Gazette

MONTREAL - This is rich: Two stars of the entertainment world are sitting within a metre of one another at different tables, but both are oblivious to the other’s presence and, likely, existence.

One is a classically trained actor and folksinger, an Oscar nominee who made his film debut in The African Queen. He has just begun a two-week starring run at the Segal Centre in Sholom Aleichem: Laughter Through Tears, the musical play he also wrote. A noted human-rights activist and one-time president of Actors’ Equity, he speaks in hushed though eloquent tones.

The other knows not from hushed, eloquent tones. He barks and his voice not only carries within the restaurant, but probably outside on the Main. And let’s not talk about his ability to bring humankind together, for that is not his strong suit. He has made a career of turning filth into an art form, earning him the richly deserved nickname “the pit bull of comedy.”

The two are on vastly different cultural courses. Perhaps the only thing they have in common is a love for super sirloin, slaw and pickles. Just as well Theodore Bikel and Bobby Slayton don’t meet on this night at Moishes: The collision could have been calamitous, though not necessarily unamusing.

While Bikel noshes with the Segal Centre brain trust and no doubt enthralls them with stories about Bogey and Katharine Hepburn, Slayton, while biting down on a dill, kibitzes with Just for Laughs president Andy Nulman, COO Bruce Hills and head of programming Robbie Praw and reminisces about his gig at Hooters in Vegas. I believe we all get the picture here.

Slayton and the JFL boys are in high spirits, celebrating the 30th anniversary of the fest, which kicks off Tuesday with the Nasty Show series. They credit Slayton with much of the success of the festival’s English portion. The Nasty Show has been, unarguably, the most popular and enduring element of the fest, and the raspy, irascible Slayton has hosted the series for 21 of its 25 years.

Slayton missed the last two years. While he was at the helm of the Bar Mitzvah Show last year, Jeffrey Ross got down and dirty at Metropolis. The year before, while Slayton was tied up at Hooters, the late Greg Giraldo took over the reins.

But there was to be no stopping Slayton on this milestone year. Slayton will have no voice left by the time he hosts his 17th show on July 28 at his familiar Club Soda stomping grounds. There will be many profanities uttered and many people offended, and he will, guaranteed, leave audiences howling. It won’t hurt that he has one of the sharpest and rudest wits in this land, Mike Wilmot, as his closer.

Nulman recalls his first brush with Slayton. It was 28 years ago in San Francisco. Nulman was on his honeymoon. Slayton was ripping into the people who dared to sit close to the stage. Nulman and his new bride, Lynn, were among them. “My immediate impulse was to move back quickly,” Nulman says. “He was unstoppable and vicious, but funny.”

Flash forward a few years: Nulman was looking for something to kick-start Just for Laughs. The benign Bubbling with Laughter series wasn’t doing the trick. But he had taken in one show in that series, which featured a then-unknown and raunchy Chris Rock. The audience was moved. Nulman wrote a two-word memo to himself: “nasty show.” Then the idea to have Slayton host came to him.

And so the Nasty Show came to life. It didn’t take long for Slayton to acclimatize himself to Montreal. An epicure of sorts, he was taken aback by the city’s Chinatown. “What Chinatown?” he screeched on his first night at the helm of the Nasty Show. “More like China-block-and-a-half!” The crowd convulsed, and a star was born.

Slayton, while inhaling a dish of chopped liver, shares a theory for the continuing popularity of the series. “The fest has all these shows geared for certain demographics: women, ethnics, gays, Jews, albinos. But the Nasty Show has always been just brutally honest, taking no prisoners. But it is more than just dirty. It goes against the grain of everything.”

The series has drawn the best in the biz over the years: Ross, Wilmot, Louis C.K., Dave Chappelle, Dave Attell, Nick DiPaolo, Jim Norton, Lisa Lampanelli, and the late Bill Hicks, Patrice Oneal, Robert Schimmel and Giraldo.

“And don’t forget Bill Cosby,” adds Praw.

Ah, everyone’s a kidder.

“Seriously, though, I like to think that the Nasty Show draws the smartest audiences,” says Slayton, about to carve into his steak.

Of course he does.

Slayton take a few bites of beef and offers the others something to chew on: “I thought this festival had something for everybody. But now I realize there were two demographics left out: children and adults who have never grown up. That’s why they got the Muppets this year. What the hell is that all about? Howdy Doody wasn’t available? Chucky wanted too much money?”

Programming chief Praw seeks to explain his reasoning in conscripting the Muppets. To no avail, of course.

Astonishingly, Slayton has only once been attacked on stage. A young man, on his first date, took offence when Slayton began to badger the couple with all manner of indignities. The fellow, sitting in the first row, hurled a beer bottle at the comic. But rather than back off, Slayton donned a goalie mask and came back to hurl more insults. The guy soon settled down.

“I never back down,” insists Slayton. “If I do, I’m dead in this business.”

Without question, however, all agree that the most memorably bizarre moment in Nasty Show history involved the adult-themed ventriloquist team of Otto and George. Two minutes into their act and killing the crowd here, Otto the human left the stage with his wooden sidekick. The rubber band in George’s mouth snapped.

“Otto was going nuts backstage,” Slayton remembers. “He didn’t have a replacement part. But here’s the kicker: Otto was not known for his ventriloquism as much as the rot that poured out the dummy’s mouth. Nobody would have noticed the rubber band in the mouth. And if you’re a ventriloquist, shouldn’t you have replacement parts?”

All also concur that Montreal audiences – which are made up, perhaps surprisingly, of increasingly more women than men – are most receptive to the Nasty Show.

“One of our worst ideas was to do a cross-Canada Nasty Show tour,” Hills says. “We had Slayton, Wilmot, and Otto and George. But nobody, it seems, read the warnings in the ads. Otto was the opener, and I told him to be gentle in Edmonton. Naturally, he went with his most offensive material, and half the audience bailed right after.

“Ottawa was okay with it, but not like Montreal. Toronto was not as good as Ottawa. Winnipeg, not as good as Toronto. And the show got the worst reception in Vancouver, even worse than Edmonton. No question, Montreal has the most open-minded crowds.”

“The women love me here because they’re not married to me,” Slayton shoots back. “My wife would love me, too, if she wasn’t married to me.”

Slayton isn’t concerned that Bob Saget will usurp his throne when he comes to the fest to do a XXX-rated gala. “I love Saget. He’s a good friend. He’s richer, cuter and nastier, perhaps. But I’m funnier,” Slayton declares. “I’m like the Keith Richards of comedy: nobody can drink and party as hard as me and still be alive. Others have tried and failed.

“All the same, thank God Captain Kangaroo is dead, or else they just might have had him hosting the Nasty Show to keep with the Muppets theme.”

Yup, the bite is still as piercing as the bark.

The Nasty Show, hosted by Bobby Slayton and featuring Mike Wilmot, Paula Bel, Brian Keith Etheridge and Ben Roy, runs Tuesday to Sunday and July 27 and 28 at Club Soda, 1225 St. Laurent Blvd. For show times and reservations, call 514-286-1010 or 514-845-2322, or visit hahaha.com.

Robbie Praw (left), Just for Laughs programmer, Andy Nulman, president of Just for Laughs, comic Bobby Slayton, host of the Nasty Show, and Just for Laughs COO Bruce Hills, photographed at Moishe's steakhouse in Montreal.

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